AzInTelecom National Data Center, Absheron

This is the first of two national data centres AzInTelecom is building with a EUR 43 million loan from EIB Global, signed on 13 December 2024 and recorded by the bank as its first loan to Azerbaijan's public sector. The EIB's own project documents describe the operation as the construction of the first phase of a large Tier III data centre close to Baku together with a disaster recovery centre, and state that each of the centres will have both a cloud module holding the operator's IT equipment and a colocation module ready for the installation of customers' IT equipment. That colocation module is what makes the project commercially relevant: it is the first publicly financed capacity in Azerbaijan explicitly designed to be let to third parties. The bank expects completion in 2027 and notes that the promoter will apply for LEED certification as part of the design process, with the level still to be defined; it also classifies Azerbaijan's earthquake hazard as high and made seismic-resistant design a condition of first disbursement, alongside a climate risk vulnerability assessment and an independent assessment of national data protection rules. The EIB explicitly records the project as not being a hyperscale data centre. The stated purpose is to consolidate public IT systems now spread across separate authorities, with the Government Cloud expected to migrate once the sites are live. No IT load, floor area or rack count has been published.